Born in 1902

Robert Adams was a British Guyanese actor who worked on both the stage and screen and he also happened to be my grandfather.

A trailblazing actor, he founded the Negro Repertory Arts Theatre, one of the 1st professional black theatre companies in Britain and went on to become the World's first black television actor when he starred in Theatre Parade: Scenes From Hassan for the BBC in 1937 (see picture).

He would also go on to be the first black actor to play a role in a Shakespearean play on British TV in the role of the Prince of Morocco in The Merchant of Venice.

Robert Adams as Masrur The Executioner in Scenes From Hasan in 1937

More than just an actor

Robert Adams was something of an overachiever.

Highly intelligent, athletic, learned and lettered, his career took in such things as being the UK champion heavyweight wrestler known as The Black Eagle, being a teacher, artist's model, journalist, singer, lawyer, a reverend and a founding member of the League of Coloured Peoples among other things.

A tribute

For my part, this site is a tribute to his life and work in as much detail as I can find.

He had passed away some 10 years prior to my being born so I never met the man. I have only the photos that are collected here (thank you mum), some family recollections from his surviving children and what has been pieced together across the internet by film fans, scholars and amateur detectives of black cultural history to whom I am eternally grateful.

I hope that this site proves interesting to anyone passing by seeking to know more about the man and his contributions to theatre, film and TV and more broadly to black culture not just in the UK but across the world, as he unknowingly helped blazed a trail that others would come to follow and upon which they would see great success...